It is possible to restrict the creation and editing of the appointments in general, which also restricts rule-outs, however currently it isn't possible to restrict user access to the 'rule-out' feature alone.

I have converted this post to an Idea for other users to express their interest in this functionality being added.

I would really like to see this implemented in the options for each practitioner. It can cause a great deal of issue when the staff have the ability to make any time they wish unavailable by ruling themselves out. I think serious consideration needs to be taken to adding this function to your practitioner general access permissions.

Hi, I recently called Smartsoft regarding this similar problem at my practice. Someone must have ruled the particular column out and we couldn't remove the rule out after several attempts.

I had to call smartsoft and you guys had problems removing the rule out too. You had to get your programmer to open a SQL window to remove it which they later admit that it was a glitch in the system.

If the rule out isn't perfected yet, I would highly suggest you to restrict access to avoid such situation. I would agree that rule out should only be allowed access to certain people. Hope this make sense.

Hi Kat, I was the programmer who resolved the issue, and this had nothing to do with rule-outs. A partially completed appointment was found in your database. This is a very rare event which may have occurred when a glitch occurred on your computer or network while making or deleting an appointment.

I'm the person this kind of thing would get escalated to, and I can't remember the last time I saw something like this. As millions of appointments are created in Front Desk every month, we would certainly know if there was a problem in this area.

It would be highly unlikely for this to occur again, so you can continue to use the Front Desk Appointment Book with confidence.

Thanks for your response Gerry. While Kat's issue may have been a one off rare case, I think the real issue here is more to do with the rule out function itself. It seems to be causing problems in a number of peoples clinics with staff being able to rule themselves out (which means they are not available for appointments through either phone or online bookings). This is a serious concern for our businesses and it would be greatly appreciated if your teams would be able to look further into making this a permission option so that we can select who has access to it and who doesn't.

From my perspective it would still be great to allow staff to make their own appointments and therefore removing their ability to edit any appointments does not seem like an appropriate option.

Hi ScottOkay, we are hearing this response loud and clear. We have changed this idea to under consideration rather than not planned. It is probably heading in the direction where it will be done in the future.